


friendly fire (literally)

by V_e_s_a_n_u_s



Series: Whumptober 2018 [19]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Corpses, F/M, Fighting, Fire, Friendly Fire, Injury, Major Character Injury, Redcliffe, Rejection, Romance, Violence, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 14:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16369259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_e_s_a_n_u_s/pseuds/V_e_s_a_n_u_s
Summary: Day number 21 of #whumptober! Prompt was friendly fire!Sometimes some attacks are misplaced, and hit the wrong targets. The Warden Theron and his LI Morrigan find that out the hard way when the dead attack Redcliffe.





	friendly fire (literally)

Theron slipped his hand into Morrigan’s as they waited for darkness to fall over Redcliffe. The mage looked down in concern, uncomfortable at the unprompted and unwarranted gesture. She tried to pull her hand back, but he gripped on tighter. 

“Problem?” The elf said with a smirk, “We’re together now, aren’t we?”

Morrigan frowned, “It is a pointless gesture: it’s just more unnecessary touching,” her eyes then narrowed, “And  _ what  _ did you say?” 

Theron glanced out across the lake, watching the sun lower slowly behind the horizon, the water reflecting the light brilliantly and the sky lit up in an array of colours. He thought it was romantic. He hadn’t figured Morrigan to be the romantic type, really, but thought that few people would have been so openly hostile towards it, especially since now they’d been… intimate. 

“I said we’re together now, right?” He said slowly, returning his eyes to hers, “I thought that…”

“That what? That we spent one night together and now I’m  _ bound  _ to you? You said you didn’t believe in love,” Morrigan snapped, “It seems you’d just say anything to get my approval.” 

The elf was frowning, upset, and let Morrigan pull away this time, “No, I… I just thought…” he sighed, looking down, at his own hands, “It’s nothing.”   
“Heads up!” Alistair called from across the dock. He was pointing up at the castle, and the two turned around to face where he was pointing. 

Along the hillside, they could see a foul green smoke pour out of the castle gates and start flowing down the path. Theron stood up and squinted, his sharp eyes picking out silhouettes in the mist. Out from the sickly green fog rushed corpses, hundreds of them, using the smoke as cover as they charged down the hillside. 

“To arms!” Theron shouted, picking up his daggers from where they were lying on the floor and beginning to rush back to the marketplace. The rest of his party ran after him, Morrigan setting their weapons alight as they did. They were going to need all the help they could get. 

Dwyn was standing by the fireside, pointing and yelling, “Up there, Warden! Help the Knights, we’ll cover the town!”

Theron followed his advice immediately, tearing up the mountainside, calves burning at the uphill struggle, but they could hear the clashing of swords against swords above them, and they only ran faster. “Come on!” He shouted, “They’re counting on us!”

“Light the barrels!” He could hear from above them, “Set them alight!” and suddenly there was a blaze of warmth and flames raging, fighting hard against that thick green fog. The screeching of the dead was the first thing he recognised as he arrived at the top of the hill.

As expected, the corpses were rushing straight through the middle of the flames, coming out the other side burning, their rotting flesh crisping and turning black even as they attacked. Theron and his party jumped into the fray, their newly blazing weapons dealing even more fire damage to the corpses as they fought. Alistair rushed to the front lines, fighting those he could reach the moment they stepped out of the flames, freshly dazed by the fire. The elf was running alongside him, stepping behind his engaged targets the moment he could to deal more aggressive backstabs.

Leliana stood beside Morrigan, both firing from a distance. The rogue aimed for the stragglers and the ranged attackers, the ones who the knights weren’t focusing on and thus were avoiding the bulk of the damage. Morrigan, however, was bringing down lightning and flame onto the corpses engaged in combat with the more heavily armed soldiers, who were less likely to switch targets and attack her head-on.

It was the first time they really fought as a team, really working together. 

If Theron wasn’t fending off a corpse trying to bite his head off, he would have been proud. Instead, he was yelling, “A little help?!” And soon Leliana was arcing an arrow towards him that landed squarely in the back of the dead man’s head, “Thanks!” Shoving the now more dead corpse off of him, Theron shook off the unnerving feeling he had and activated his stealth, immediately disappearing from view to attack a different target. 

Morrigan was backstepping quickly, she’d attracted more attention than she had intended. There were three corpses now, shambling after her even as she retreated. Once she got to a safe distance, where she wasn’t going to catch Leliana or Alistair in the crossfire, she slammed her staff into the ground before she pointed it at the group, flames bursting from the end of it in a cone. There was an agonising screech that erupted from the three of them, the corpses trying to shake the fire off of them, before one by one they began to drop, limbs burning and snapping off before they could retaliate. The flames continued raging in front of her, even as the three corpses collapsed dead on the floor and their fires went out. The screaming kept going too. 

Morrigan narrowed her eyes. It was just the other sounds of battle, the other corpses fighting back against the knights or the fire barricade. She tried to convince herself that was what it was. But there was something about the noise that was familiar. 

“By the Maker!” Leliana shouted as she whirled around to face the noise as well. She tossed her bow to the ground and ran towards Morrigan. The mage had begun to realise it too. 

There was a figure standing in front of her, screaming and shaking, silhouetted by flames. It was  _ Theron.  _

Suddenly his spell wore off and the elf reappeared. His skin was blistering and red, his eyes terrified and his mouth still screaming. The hair on his head was sizzling off, smoke rising from all around him, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Not the rotting smell of the burning corpses. The smell of pork sizzling over a campfire. The smell of fresh meat cooking. It was Theron. 

Morrigan couldn’t believe it. She yelped in surprise when he appeared, instantly summoning a frost spell, gently washing it over him to put out the fire. The elf gasped at the sudden cold and groaned as it eased his pain for a moment. She rushed forwards as he fell to his knees in shock. 

“Theron!” Morrigan cried out, trying to examine him, to gauge the extent of his injuries, the battle around them forgotten. 

Leliana was next to them, eyes wide and hair in disarray around her face, “Calm down, Theron. It’s going to be okay,” she said soothingly, pulling potions and poultices out of her pack, hissing under her breath at Morrigan, “What did you do?!”

The mage glared at her, biting words caught on her tongue. She didn’t quite understand the feeling in her brain. It was worry. Worry for someone  _ other _ than herself. She’d never felt that before. 

Morrigan took the elf’s face gingerly in her hands and examined it. She was no healer but she wasn’t  _ incapable.  _ Maybe she could help. But when she saw his face, eyes still bright and terrified behind blistered and blackened eyelids, his lips cracked, red and groaning in pain, she knew she couldn’t do much. Not here. 

A blade came swinging down, about to make contact with Leliana’s neck, but Alistair appeared next to them, blocking it with his sword, bringing his shield down on the back of the armed corpse’s head. He bashed it a few times, before bringing his sword around in one large, powerful arc and chopping its head off. 

The human yelled over his shoulder, not really looking, “Maker, Leliana, are you  _ trying _ to get yourself killed? What are you-” he glanced back and stopped, eyes landing on the charred body who was wearing Theron’s leather armour, “By the Maker,” he said under his breath, “Is that  _ Theron?” _

“Yes,” Morrigan snapped, “We’ve got to get him out of here, I-” She tightened her fist around her staff, “This is my fault. I’ve got to fix it.”

The three of them shared a look, knowing and worried. 

They’d fix it as much as they could. 

Who knows? Maybe he’d pull through.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! Leave a comment or kudos if you did! :)


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